One of the major debates between defenders of the Book of Mormon as history and opponents of this claim has to do with whether the book must necessarily have been intended as a sacred history of all of North and South America. Apologists for the book’s status as history argue that the text is more compatible with the idea that the children of Lehi were never more than a drop in the ocean in population terms. On this popular reading, almost the entire Book of Mormon would have taken place in a relatively small part of Central America. This approach helps make the journeys mentioned in the book more plausible. It also greatly reduces the ability of DNA analysis to falsify the narrative.

Opponents of a historical Book of Mormon try to reject this
interpretation by pointing out (1) that most Latter-day Saints believe
in the whole-continent interpretation–a fact I consider true but
irrelevant; (2) that Joseph Smith seems to have also believed in the whole-continent interpretation, a more relevant but still manageable objection; and (3) that several revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants identify individuals as Lamanites in ways that seem to require a whole-continent interpretation of the book.

This last argument cannot be dispensed with using the same arguments used against the first two points. Purely personal beliefs, whether held by prophets, church members, or anti-Mormons, are not binding on anybody. They’re just opinions. The contents of the Doctrine and Covenants are, of course, another matter. Such statements are authoritative texts for Latter-day Saints, accepted as part of the canon and equal in status with the actual text of the Book of Mormon.

An example of the kind of material I’m talking about is Doctrine and Covenants 28:8, which gives Oliver Cowdery the following instruction:

And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them; and inasmuch as they receive thy teachings thou shalt cause my church to be established among them; and thou shalt have revelations, but write them not by way of commandment.

In response to this instruction, Cowdery led a mission to the American Indians. Did he misunderstand the revelation? Was he really being sent to Central America? Or is this an authoritative identification of Native Americans as Lamanites?

The next verse adds some additional clarity, stating that the city of Zion is to be built "on the borders by the Lamanites" (verse 9). Missouri, of course, isn’t terribly close to Central America. However, it was close to Native American territory at the time of this revelation. Once again, we seem to have an authoritative identification of the Native Americans as Lamanites. Similar statements can be found in Doctrine and Covenants 32:2 and 54:8. In other words, there seems to be a canonical–as well as a folkloric–Latter-day Saint tradition that identifies Lamanites with Native Americans in particular, and potentially with all pre-Colombian peoples more generally.

How are we to deal with this? One possibility is to conclude that limited-geography theories are out of harmony with the mind of the Lord as revealed the Doctrine and Covenants. This would , of course, make limited geographies unacceptable and even blasphemous for faithful Latter-day Saints.

A second alternative is to propose that the Doctrine and Covenants not be treated as infallible. The revelations in the book may instead be interpreted as Joseph Smith’s best human attempt to express the messages he was sent from God–with the understanding that the doctrines and statements in those revelations are a mix of the erroneous human and the reliable divine. Some Latter-day Saints probably already believe this, while others would likely tend to find it blasphemous in its own right.

The third alternative that I see is to conclude that the term "Lamanites" may have different meanings in different situations. At some points in the Book of Mormon, the term seems to have had a geneological meaning. At other points, it had a more social and political meaning. If we accept that "Lamanites" can have different meanings in different contexts, then the Doctrine and Covenants texts are not necessarily in conflict with limited Book of Mormon geographies.

For example, if we take "Lamanites" to mean, in the Doctrine and Covenants, all pre-Colombians who were not Nephites, then we don’t have a problem. Of course, in conjunction with a limited geography for the Book of Mormon, this would mean that the vast majority of Lamanites are not descendents of Lehi–and in fact would have had no idea that Nephites or the Nephite religion ever existed. This seems an somewhat problematic stretching of the term "Lamanite," but that consideration does not definitively rule out the meaning.

Also problematic for this third approach is the existence of Doctrine and Covenants texts that seem to use "Lamanite" in a different sense than this. For example, consider 3:16-18, which says,

Nevertheless, my work shall go forth, for inasmuch as the knowledge of a Savior has unto the world, through the testimony of the Jews, even so shall the knowledge of the Savior come unto my people–and to the Nephites, and the Jacobites, and the Josephites, and the Zoramites, through the testimony of their fathers–and this testimony shall come to the knowledge of the Lamanites, and the Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites, who dwindled in unbelief because of the iniquity of their fathers, whom the Lord has suffered to destroy their brethren the Nephites, because of their iniquities and their abominations.

This text seems to refer to the different Book of Mormon tribes in a geneological sense. In particular, Lamanites are said to have fallen into disbelief because of "the iniquity of their fathers," who would presumably have been actors in the Book of Mormon drama–if not direct descendents of Laman. If the Native Americans of Joseph Smith’s day are required by the Doctrine and Covenants to have been Lamanites in this sense, then there is a serious difficulty for limited geographies.

In a similar vein, Doctrine and Covenants 19:27 explicitly identifies the Lamanites as geneologically linked to the Jews.

I don’t see any problem with the proposition that different sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, which after all contain revelations given in distinct circumstances spread across a number of years, use the term "Lamanite" in different senses. Hence, these texts do not definitively disprove the hypothesis that "Lamanite" is used in a social and political sense in some sections. Nevertheless, they do constitute an anomaly for this account.

I mention this material particularly because, while I have seen a few different arguments from advocates of a limited geography to the effect that non-canonical statements should be disregarded, I have never found any such commentary with respect to this Doctrine and Covenants material. Enemies of the limited geography hypothesis and of Book of Mormon historicity, by contrast, do make use of these revelations. (See footnote three in the Editor’s Introduction to this famous, or perhaps infamous, book.) Advocates of the limited geography approach do need to address this issue. I’ve offered what I see as the three possible believing responses (in broad strokes, of course), so my work is done.

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30 Responses to “Lamanites in the Doctrine and Covenants and in Limited Book of Mormon Geographies”

It seems to me that if your Joseph Smith was a prophet, then you would logically follow everything he believed.

But no, you recognize that many of the “prophet’s” actions are ridiculous. The modern LDS church has tossed out whatever doctrines are embarassing and blatantly false. This is the same reason why the LDS church does not vaunt Joseph Smith’s “Inspired” translation. No, they avoid the potential problems there by just using the KJV. The trappings of the LDS theologians helps that church to get out of as many critical issues as it can.

Honestly, do you need a divine proclamation from God himself to convince you that the LDS church is not true? The evidence is quite clearly stacked against you, on all sides. Trust me, it is a breath of fresh air to come to admit the truth.

“limited geography for the Book of Mormon…would mean that the vast majority of Lamanites are not descendents of Lehi”

Actually, if Lehi was a real person, he was very likely a direct ancestor of most or all modern native americans, even if the geography was extremely “limited,” simply because of the mixing that would occur over that long time period. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that it makes sense to call them “Lamanites,” any more than it makes sense to call you and me a “Greeks” just because we are almost certainly descended from Alexander the Great.)

Ed’s right. There is a difference between Lehi being the Y Chromosome Adam of all American Indians (ridiculous and false) and being a common ancestor. For any given set there is a most recent common ancestor which is remarkably not too far in the past. Every one of this most recent common ancestor’s ancestors would also ancestor to all A.I.’s now living. A certain point is reached, again not too far in the past, where everyperson which was alive at that time either now has no surviving descendants or were ancestors to all now living. With regards to the A.I.’s I’m not sure when this point in time was, but I have little doubt that there have been common ancestors which lived after Lehi’s time.

Another issue is the definition of the words “Lamanite”. Did it label a genetic group? A political group? A culture? A religion? Or was it just a generic term for “others”?

Another ray of hope could be in Ostler’s idea of expansion. The Lord called the AI’s “Lamanites” to Joseph because this is what they were to Joseph. Either that our God revealed the concept, and Joseph expressed it as “lamanites.” There is more wiggle room than the hardcore-scripture-thumping literalists allow for.

A friend of RT’s suggested to us once that one should not have faith in one’s church, but rather in the gospel that one’s church teaches. Every church, after all, is an institution run by humans; and institutions are neither true nor false. We could quibble about the intent of the LDS Church’s founders, about the truth of their claims, about the accuracy of the LDS Church’s doctrines, about a host of other things. But we cannot quibble about the truth of the LDS Church, because that just doesn’t make any sense. Besides, none of these conversations are really relevant to the conversation RT initiated above.

As you are obviously interested in Mormon thought, I’d love it if you’d comment on the content of RT’s original post: the implications of attempting to reconcile D&C statements with limited Book of Mormon geographies.

By the way, if you’d like to have a conversation with me about LDS theology and doctrinal claims, I’d be interested. Read my post on the basis of my faith here: http://ldsliberationfront.blogs.com/ldslf/2005/03/to_be_owned_by_.html, so you’re familiar with my thinking, and email me. Don’t worry, I don’t want to tangle you in a conversion attempt. I’m just always interested in a conversation, and you may find that there are some innacurate stereotypes out there about what it means to be a believing Mormon.

Not even the Book of Mormon uses the term Lamanites to just refer to descendents of Laman. And it appears the the BoM also uses the term differently at different times. It is often a term for those that do not believe in Christ, but even that gets violated all the time when it is used to refer to groups that historically did not believe, but now do. It would seem a stretch to require that the D&C use a more stringent and exacting definition than the Book of Mormon itself.

Perhaps the best comparison is the rather complicated use of the terms Gentile and House of Israel. These seem to mean different things in different revelations, sometimes cultural, sometimes spiritual, sometimes genetic.

There seem to be several ideas about what we mean by a “limited geography” theory. We should distinguish several ideas.

1) The idea that the events described in the BOM took place on a continental scale, with the lands northward and southward corresponding to the north and south american continents, with the cumorah-battle happening in New York, etc.

This is not just incompatible with scientific evidence, it is incompatible with the text of the BOM itself. Although there are undoubtedly many examples of church leaders who believed this, it would be inaccurate to say this was ever a “teaching of the church.” The term “limited geography” seems to mostly imply opposition to this view.

2) The idea that the Lehi and Mulek bands are the main ancestors of modern native americans.

This idea may be implied in the text of the BOM, but other interpretations are possible. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the church has taught this from the start, and to some extent still teaches is (though that may be changing). This view was unequivically promoted by countless leaders and in countless official publications, before and after correlation. This view is challenged by DNA evidence. Contrary views are often lumped into the category of “limited geography,” but perhaps we should instead call them something like “limited ancestry.”

2a) The somewhat weaker idea that Lehi and Mulek’s bands mixed quickly with native populations, and the resulting civilizations described in the BOM were the main ancestors of native americans, but that these people were not primarily Isrealite in ancestry.

This view cannot be disproven by DNA evidence, but may be challenged by archeological, linguistic, or other evidence.

3) The idea that Lehi is a literal ancestor of most or all modern native americans.

As I said before, this follows as long as Lehi was a real person, no matter how limited the geography or how many other non-israelite ancestors there were. People need to realize that this question is not at stake in the “limited geography” debate. This is also not a question that can be answered by scientific evidence, including DNA evidence.

I take the references to Lehi as a literal ancestor of all pre-Colombian peoples to be an uncredited comment on the Rohde, Olson, and Chang piece from Nature last year. If that’s the case, it should be recognized that the analysis there contains no empirical testing. What it does instead is develop theoretical hypotheses based on assumptions reflected in a mathematical model. That’s how science starts–but it doesn’t finish until the hypotheses are matched to data. If the hypotheses don’t match the data, then we’ve learned that the assumptions we built into the model were wrong. Until that point, the model remains interesting but not actually informative.

In this case, we can’t conclude that the pre-Colombian peoples share a relatively recent common ancestor until genetic evidence shows this to be the case. If the empirics go in the opposite direction, it just means that, as is possible, the mathematical model didn’t adequately capture human mating behavior.

Aside from this methodological point about not drawing conclusions from untested theoretical hypotheses, there is a second reason that defenders of Book of Mormon historicity should strongly resist the notion that all pre-Colombians are literal descendents of Lehi. This is that it makes the lack of mDNA and Y-chromosome genetic material from the Middle East much harder to explain. If Lehi and Sariah are two of a relatively small set of common ancestors for all pre-Colombians, their DNA should be at least substantially present among this group–to claim otherwise begins to strain plausibility.

In other words, Ed, you’re wrong that your claim #3 cannot be tested by DNA evidence; if it’s true, the results that Thomas Murphy and others report should probably have been different. This isn’t a definitive claim–scientific empirics rarely are. But the probability that nearly no Middle Eastern DNA would be found under this model approaches zero. For this reason, as well as the fact that it’s an excessive reliance on empirically untested hypotheses, it’s extremely unwise for apologetic efforts to rely on the idea that all pre-Colombians are in fact literal descendents of Lehi.

By the way, Ed, you should drop option 2a altogether. This hypothesis strongly contradicts the available cultural and archaeological evidence. To pick an arbitrary example, the cultures of the north coast of Peru showed a long, cumulative development of ideas and motifs starting well before 600 BC and continuing through that point in what appears to be a consistent arc of internal evolution. Either the descendents of Lehi dissolved into such cultures without leaving a trace, which strongly contradicts the Book of Mormon narrative, or these many groups cannot reasonably be construed as having any historical connection with the Lehites.

Frank’s suggestion that we use option #3 of those discussed in my original post seems preferable to me. Although the potential of #2 should not be overlooked. This seems, as Jeffrey points out, a straightforward extrapolation of the Ostler expansion theory of revelation.

I think you’ve failed to understand the points I’m making about direct descent.

First of all, I’m not claiming that “Lehi and Sariah are two of a relatively small set of common ancestors for all pre-Colombians”. Rather, I’m claiming that EVERYONE ALIVE in the New World at the time of Lehi is a literal ancestor of all modern native americans (except for the ones who have no living descendents at all.) If there were millions of people in the New World at that time, then there were millions of common ancestors. Thus Lehi’s DNA would likely be a drop in the bucket, which is indetectible by current methods and may remain so forever. For example, this idea doesn’t imply that ANYONE has Lehi’s Y chromosome, much less that a substantial portion of native americans do.

Your statement that “we can’t conclude that the pre-Colombian peoples share a relatively recent common ancestor until genetic evidence shows this to be the case” doesn’t make sense if you understand what the model is saying. The most recent common ancestor doesn’t have to have left any genetic trace at all. It is a totally different concept than, for example, mitochondrial eve.

You are right that the mathematical models make many simplifying assumptions. Unfortunately, the models cannot be tested empirically because we don’t have complete geneologies for everyone over the past three thousand years, and we have no prospect of ever getting them. DNA doesn’t help because it doesn’t allow us to reconstruct these detailed geneologies (although it can answer some geneological questions, e.g. about the tiny edges of the family tree that go along the male or female lines). The point of the model is to see that our intuition about “literal ancestors” is wrong, and this conclusion will hold even if we relax many of the assumptions of the mathematical model. If you deny that Lehi would be an ancestor of all modern native americans, you seem to have in mind some alternative model in which there is absolutely no interbreeding AT ALL between adjacent human populations.

I’m not sure what you mean…I’m not promoting any of these ideas, just trying to distinguish them for purposes of discussion. I agree that 2a is incompatible with archeological evidence, which I stated in my comment above.

My main points are:

1) We should distinguish “limited geography” ideas (that the BOM lands were small) from “limited ancestry” ideas (that NA ancestry is not primarily from Lehi’s and Mulek’s parties).

2) We should distinguish “limited ancestry” from “no ancestry at all” (which would imply that Lehi didn’t even exist). NAs might all be literal descendents of Lehi even if Lehi and Mulek’s parties form only a tiny, indetectible part of their ancestry.

The problem is that our intuitions are only wrong given the model. But, as you point out, there’s no empirical evidence for the model. Economics would be a useful comparison field for you here. Economists are capable of generating thousands of complex mathematical models that wildly contradict each other. That’s why empirical analysis is an unavoidable part of science. Untested ideas, like the one you’re selling here, are halfway through the process at best. If there’s no hope of testing the model, best to drop the concept.

The piece in Nature actually suggests that the result of all this intermixing is that populations develop a limited universe of common ancestors; of people alive at Lehi’s time, a small percentage would be the only ones with any ancestry. Hence, either there are no descendents of Lehi, or Lehi should be a meaningful, and most probably a detectable, part of the genetic heritage. If you don’t like that implication, fine; you’ve just got to throw out the mathematical population analysis–which has no evidence in favor of it anyway. But if you want to keep the analysis, you’ve got to keep this implication, as well.

I know you’re not promoting ideas. But if you’re going to list implausible ideas and even ideas that contradict the evidence, your list is way too short. My personal favorite is one I heard from a ward member when growing up: just after the end of the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites were kidnapped by aliens. The gospel miracle will consist of rescuing them from their millenia of ritual abuse and testing. This notion is paranoid delusion, to be sure, but it’s still an idea that’s possible to hold.

By the way, just to be clear, I apologize if the last paragraph seems to imply that you’re paranoid or deluded, Ed. All of the ideas on your list are obviously rational and coherent. My point in raising this story is (1) that I like the story a lot, and (2) that, if we explicitly consider unreasonable alternatives, we force ourselves to include ridiculous notions that we really aren’t interested in. That’s why I’d suggest dropping the 2a option from your list of alternatives; it doesn’t seem reasonable in light of really quite a lot of data.

I question your interpretation that “of people alive at Lehi’s time, a small percentage would be the only ones with any ancestry.” Are you sure this is what the Nature piece concluded? I strongly doubt it.

According to this site summarizing this line of research, “Rhode…uses non-random mating, a realistic birth rate, and a model of male-female mate choice, to get a more convincing figure of around 60 percent for the percentage of people whose lines do not go extinct….In other words, if you go back before the ACA point, which may be as recent as classical times, you are descended from around 60 percent of any ancient population that has children.”

I haven’t read the Nature piece, but I’ve read some of the earlier work that it builds on. If you have access to the Nature article I’d very much like to read it!

I think you are being too dismissive of these models. We have a question that absolutely cannot be answered simply by data, so we have to make assumptions. A model is simply a way to test the implication of reasonable assumptions, and in this case it shows that reasonable assumptions lead to counter-intuitive conclusions. (You might be amused to learn that I have a Ph.D. in economics.) It’s right to be skeptical of the models, but you should let them inform your intuition! People who naively say that NA are probably not “direct descendents” of Lehi haven’t done that.

“For lack of a better term, we will refer to sims who have no living descendants as extinct. In other words, these are sims whose lineage has died out. Clearly, anyone who produces no children is extinct upon their death. But even those who produce some children may become extinct if all of those lines die out, which rarely occurs beyond the first few generations. In the model empirically, we find that 33.31% of females and 45.42% of males actually become extinct.”

So Rhode’s model predicts that the majority of adults alive at the time of Lehi would have been ancestors of all or nearly all modern NA. If Lehi arrived on an inhabited continent, his band would make up only a trivial portion of these ancestors.

One thing that it seems to me all this discussion (which is really a nice microcosm of the discourse between the folks who follow Murphy’s literature view and its opponents (FARMS, FAIR, whomever)) is that the whole thing is a moot point because we still haven’t addressed the premises the disucssion is based on: we still haven’t clarified what is meant by Lamanites…

Some thoughts on the term “Lamanites” drawn from its original context, the Book of Mormon. (Yes, you can follow Ostler and make an argument that the term Lamanite was something Joseph Smith used in his own mind, and that since the Book of Mormon was revealed to him using that term, it has a prior usage, and we should go with Joseph’s usage etc. etc. etc… I think Ostler’s theory is a bit… complicated. Occam’s razor still seems to require the favoiring of more literalist interpretaitons of the BOM, which are a little clearer, which I still think he has been unable to entirely dismiss satisfactorily.) In the Book of Mormon, as has been previously stated, the term Lamanite is used differently. It means, as has previously been stated, something like the Israelite “Gentile,” a generic catch-all to describe the “other” that is perceived to be an infidel. It also means, at times, literal descendents of Laman. It also means, at times, those who are themselves distinguishing themselves as “other” so as to draw a firm line between the cultural Nephites.
It also means those who are descended from Laman, Lemuel, or Ishmael, the group that Nephi and his proponents left at the begining.

At the end of the Book of Mormon, it clearly means “Those who decided to not follow the Nephite form of Christianity and called themselves Lamanites.” At this point, it’s not a genetic marker, but a cultural one. From that point of view, even given a limited geography model, it seems that it should be fairly easy for Mormon and Moroni to apply that term to everbody else on the continent, regardless of whether or not they applied that term to themselves. Mormon and Moroni were soldiers, fighting hostile “enemy combatants” (forgive the pun), and therefore they need a catch-all term to describe the enemy. Culturally, then, Lamanite, once again, means “other.” It’s not hard to make that jump.

I’m not convinced, however, that such a jump is even necessary. One point which I’ve never seen raised in these discussions is the whole concept of assignment to a tribe of Israel in patriarchal blessings. We don’t have a hard time with the fact that people are (probably? There certainly can be discussion on this issue) regularly adopted into tribes because they have no genetic component from the existing tribes of Israel in them, and therefore they need to be adopted. Given the fact that Book of Mormon folks certainly believed that this was a promised land, and only those who were brought here by the Lord could even find the place, does it seem illogical to refer to those who are left on the land but not believing as Lamanites, in general, applying this sort of “adoption” logic? It seems to me to line up pretty well…

Anyways, please criticize all of this so I can get some feedback. Maybe I’m out in left field.

I became convinced in the ahistoricity of the Book of Mormon by reading books on Mesoamerican history by mainstream professional historians after having read Sorenson’s book “An Ancient American Setting…”

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here, but one who reads only Sorenson and similar FARMS publications will certainly have the impression that this is solid history. After reading several books on Mesoamerican history, it became clear that Sorenson’s account was largely inconsistent with available evidence (i.e. Sorenson tries to fit the Jaredites into the same geographical space and time as the Olmecs without telling his readers of facts which make this theory entirely implausible; e.g. the Jaredites were a hundred times more numerous, their cultures had nothing in commen, etc.). Using the “Limited Georaphic View” changes nothing in this.

Kirk, I agree that there are substantial unresolved anomalies with limited Book of Mormon geographies. I don’t think they’re a magic bullet for convincing people that the book is historical. This thread is really about considering alternative approaches to an intellectual dilemma within the limited geography theory/theology–not about resolving broader issues of truth claims related to that theory/theology.

Personally, I view the Limited Geography Model as a stepping stone toward the Zero Geography Model (i.e., that there was no real-world site at all for Nephites, Jaredites, etc.). I doubt defenders realize that is the direction they are heading, but that is the logic of accomodating their theories to the ever-less-friendly evidence. At least they are taking account of the evidence (or lack thereof).

Early on, the Book of Mormon does say that everyone who was led to the land became of the seed of Lehi, regardless of where they came or their heritage otherwise.

Which fits later use, e.g.

At the end of the Book of Mormon, it clearly means “Those who decided to not follow the Nephite form of Christianity and called themselves Lamanites.” At this point, it’s not a genetic marker, but a cultural one. From that point of view, even given a limited geography model, it seems that it should be fairly easy for Mormon and Moroni to apply that term to everbody else on the continent, regardless of whether or not they applied that term to themselves.

My purpose in posting this was to see how people committed to the limited-geography model thought about these Doctrine and Covenants texts. It seems to me that there are two primary responses.

1) Everybody eventually becomes the descendent of Lehi due to 2500 years of time and lots of interbreeding.

or

2) Lamanite is a cultural term that refers to everyone in the Americas who isn’t a church member, sort of how LDS folks use “gentile” these days.

Both approaches make sense to me within the paradigm on limited-geography apologetics, and I now have an answer to my question! If there’s anything I’ve missed, please let me know.

Dave: I’d be interested in pursuing the hypothesis that limited geographies serve as a stepping-stone to disbelief in historicity. The thing to do would be to carry out a survey and see how many mainstream LDS folks have been exposed to limited geographies, and how many exmormon types were exposed to limited geographies before they left. But I don’t have any idea how to get a reasonable sample of either group–or any funding. Still, I’d be interested…

RT: I can accept that is quite possible that most living Native Americans are descendants of Lehi in the sense you have described. However, that solution to the puzzle comes at some cost. If Lehi, as well as hundreds of thousands of his contemporaries, are all ancestors of the existing Native Americans, doesn’t that make the promises made to Lehi with regard to his descendants much less meaningful? It suggests that hundreds of thousands of his contemporaries also received the same blessings with respect to their seed. The Book of Mormon sure gives the impression that the promised land has been specially set aside for Lehi and his seed, at least until they are scattered by the Gentiles. Being a Lamanite and the seed of Lehi does not sound so special any more when viewed this way.

Ed, by “lots” I mean the aggregate result. Only a little per generation, lots in the long run.

Gary, I agree that either of these solutions dramatically dilutes the identities in question. That’s a definite interpretive cost of moving from a hemispheric model–in which the Lehites are nearly the sole ancestors of the pre-Colombians–to a limited geography.

Hi. Ive been out of town for a whole week so I really didnt get around to answering your comment. I would love to have a conversation about the LDS church and its claims, although I am no expert in mormonism.

You said something which comes across to me as meaning that the state of your church doesnt matter, it is just the truth it teaches which is important. If I am reading you correctly, it would seem to have just the same tie to your church as a Protestant has to his denomination. I am not saying, of course, that Mormons in high positions do not sin. I understand the difference between infallibility and impeccability. But your Church teaches
1) Revelation is a continuing process, and it is done via the channel of the Mormon Church
2) The teachings of the Church are not just infallible (incapable of error), but they are inspired

This creates a problem. The Mormon Gospel dictates what the Mormon Church should be like- ie, infallible and a continually inspired institution. This goes for all the “apostles” and “prophets” of the Mormon Church. I would like you answer my comment on the Joseph Smith “Inspired” translation. If it is inspired, then why does the Mormon Church use a KJV instead? If Joseph Smith placed such a high priority on the “correctnes” of the translation (which is a mirror of the actions of cults like the JWs), why dont you use his Inspired Translation? You know why the Mormon Church does not use that “translation.” It is not inspired.

And for the subject at hand [Lamanites in the DC], I see no reason to delve deep into a subject to quibble about particular items when I can so clearly see that the whole system is false. It is as if some Tolkien fan wanted to debate me as to whether Orcs were originally derived from Elves or from Men. I dont need to do that, because the Lord of the Rings is a fiction. I dont see any reason to believe that Lamanites came to North America. The lack of any great archaeological ruins is very telling, as is the fact that no non-lds scientist believes in a story even remotely like that of the Mormon one. The only way I could possibly accept the story of the “Lamanites” is if I actually was convinced that Joseph Smith was a credible source- and you probably know how improbable that would be.

Oops. I messed up my paragraph (#2). It goes from one subject to the other very abruptly. Here is how it should read:

You said something which comes across to me as meaning that the state of your church doesnt matter, it is just the truth it teaches which is important. If I am reading you correctly, it would seem to have just the same tie to your church as a Protestant has to his denomination. The Protestant comes and leaves his church as he pleases, with absolutely no regard for the church magisterium.

You can only take the “its the church’s problem not the gospel” only so far. The Mormon “gospel” dictates on several aspects of how the church should be (the main issue I am here raising is infallibility and continuing revelation). The I am not saying, of course, that Mormons in high positions do not sin. I understand the difference between infallibility and impeccability. But your Church teaches…

If you’d asked me, you be aware that I do not presume to speak for my church, either as an institution or as a bunch of people. I only speak for myself. I will say, though, that I see no problem with the Gospel as defined in the Book of Mormon: that God sent Christ to die on the cross, that He has atoned for and redeemed us from our sins, and that the path to salvation is in accepting that atonement and following Him.

There are Mormons who define the term “the Gospel” in much more complicated ways. There are Mormons who define it in ways I consider meaningless. I don’t really care about that. I would be more than happy to discuss this with you over email, as I said before.

As I stated in my original response to your comments, though, you aren’t addressing the topic of this thread. I’d love to discuss this with you–it’s rare that anyone outside my church wants to talk about this without getting really aggresive, and I appreciate the opportunity. But don’t clutter the board–as I’m sure is quite obvious to you, this is not an apologetics web site. Little though I personally care about this topic (sorry, RT), I will pull any more off-topic comments off the thread.